


vode'galaar

by GraceEliz



Series: The Eldritch Collection [4]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: G or T for Mildest Body Horror, Gen, Ponds says very little but he is quietly judging, Wingfic, Wings, because it's an eldritch fic, mild eldritch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27859745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz
Summary: Bly started growing wings again. They have two days to fix it. Two days and then they ship out. Their ori’vod scrapes bloodied fingers through his hair, blood they know is from bandaging Littles and their younger brothers up after they’ve torn out feathers, ripped and scraped at the stumps of wings which should become wide sweeping webs, like those of the aiwhas which fly through the storms.
Relationships: CC-5052 | Bly & CC-2224 | Cody & CC-1010 | Fox & CC-6454 | Ponds & CC-3636 | Wolffe, Colt & CC-1010 | Fox
Series: The Eldritch Collection [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992514
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	vode'galaar

**Author's Note:**

> vode'galaar - my mangles mando'a for 'hawk brothers' or 'brother-hawks', with galaar meaning hawk.

Colt presses in close, whispering. “They’re growing back,” he reports, voice so quiet Fox and Wolffe barely hear him even with their advanced hearing. “Prime doesn’t care either way, but the long-necks don’t like us having them.” If the long-necks think they’re cuddling, not scheming, they won’t interrupt for another handful of minutes, ignoring them in favour of better pursuits, so Colt pulls them close enough to touch skin-to-skin, to wrap them in his arms as best he can now they’re so large, so grown.

Fox darts his amber gaze over his shoulder to Wolffe’s dark one. They are not tube-twins, but they don’t need to be in order to be united in this particular concern: Bly started growing wings again. They have two days to fix it. Two days and then they ship out. Their ori’vod scrapes bloodied fingers through his hair, blood they know is from bandaging Littles and their younger brothers up after they’ve torn out feathers, ripped and scraped at the stumps of wings which should become wide sweeping webs, like those of the aiwhas which fly through the storms. “How many of us is that,” asks Fox, turning his eyes back to Colt’s.

Their brother shrugs, pulling his fingers free of his curls, now clean of blood, even as he looks away, mouth subtly open as he tastes the air. “Fifty?”

That’s a lot of vod’e potentially decommissioned, Fox knows, brothers numbering ten times his squad who have grown these skeletal wings, the ones which drip watery blood with each movement. “And we have no choices.”

Colt sucks in a breath, pinning them in place with his predator’s-gaze, heavy and roiling like a raging storm. “Well. We have an idea about that.”

Wolffe snarls silently, sharp fangs bared up to the gum, curious, hands twisted into claws as he mimes a strike at his brother’s unprotected torso, batted away at invisible speed by their alpha-batch vod.

“How would you bunch of shebse like to lead a revolt?” asks the alpha. 

Fox grins. In the low light his eyes – mutation, mutation, malfunction, wrong – seem to glow, and his vod’s to vanish. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Their older brother smiles, deceptively unmutated, deceptively calm and peaceful with his even white teeth that can crush through bone. It’s a smile which, if given in a drill, or a class, would have Fox and Wolffe nervously anticipating a great challenge. “Our vode’galaar will be free from fear when we win, my Little ones,” he promises. “I will see to it.”

“Vode’galaar,” breathes Wolffe reverently, fingers tracing the lines of the ARC-sign for the mando’a word in the space between their bodies. “Ner vode’galaar.” He taps Fox excitedly in the curve of his spine, as if they’re still Littles and not full-grown fully trained Commanders, built and designed at great expense. “We will do it, with great enthusiasm.”

Colt smiles, but he has become distant, listening for something. “I know you will.” His focus slides away from them to the pair of long-necks watching them. “I will find you. Go now,” he orders, expecting and receiving their immediate obedience.

Like a Little on a new scent, Wolffe tugs Fox by the hand back to their pod-room. Cody lets them in, steady but emanating excitement strong enough to have Fox nearly vibrating in excitement as he crawls with ease into Bly’s pod. “Colt has news for us.”

Cody smiles, and Ponds leans out of his pod and watches. “Good.”

Up in the pod, Bly is hissing at his brother, snarling with as much anger as Wolffe has ever shown. “Do not give me hope, ner’vod’ika!”

“But you will be free!”

Bly comes tumbling out of the pod, lands into a roll to stand up with his thread-slender wings spread behind him like the pictures they’ve seen of spider’s webs and woven silks. As he moves the light fades through and into them, disorienting, as if they’re seeing two versions of their brother at a time. “I have torn my wings from my body too many times to survive false hope,” he warns. At his feet pools the thin secretion, that blood-tainted salt-water tang filling the pod-room. 

Lithe, unnaturally so, Fox slinks down the ladder of the bunk, hanging upside-down by his knees as he cocks his head and sways slightly in his excitement, looking over to Ponds who raises a judging eyebrow. “And now you will no longer need to. We will destroy the kaminiise and save our Littles, and we will be free.”

“We are beholden to the Jedi,” says Bly quietly, hands clenching and unclenching, wings fluttering.

“Not for long.”

Cody and Ponds look to each other before turning to Wolffe. “Well?”

He smiles again, baring all his teeth to his vod’ike. “I think Colt is right.” He reaches out and hooks his claws into Cody’s blacks to tug him close, leaving space for Fox and Bly and Ponds around them. “We deserve to be free, the Littles deserve for us to try.”

Ponds grunts, sliding to the floor and tugging Fox down in a flurry of high yelps and heavy thuds as they both hit the floor. They wrestle, distracted by each other until Bly kicks them and the salt-water-blood flicks onto them. “We will try, then,” he announces, and it is decided.

He is with the Generals when it happens, when one of his Shinies come running in pursued by a harried younger Medic, nat-born. The kid comes running up to him, shirtless, grinning as though he’s heard the end of the war was yesterday. “Commander! Ner’gal vherini drashaar!” He prances, twisting and turning under the early dawn light, the webs of the wings almost imperceptible, still the slender flexible silver that he remembers Bly’s wings being. The Generals look surprised, shaken even, by the child’s arrival, and General Skywalker is wearing that questioning look he gets when he isn’t sure of the mando’a translations.

“You must translate for our Generals,” Cody reminds the kid gently, who flushes and casts shy eyes at the High General.

“My wings started growing!”

“I can see, kih’vod,” he praises to cover up for his General’s mild confusion, clapping slowly as he makes a show of marvelling at the thin webs, noticing that they don’t seem to be as lubricated by the salt-water-blood as they probably should be. They have the shine of the salt-water-blood, but none of the dripping he remembers Bly’s wings doing, or their other brothers from Kamino. “How long?”

“Five weeks, and the medics say they’re healthy but that it’s maybe too dry on this planet,” the boy says with enthusiasm. A glance at the nat-born medic assures him that the wings are indeed healthy. How much can go wrong, in the growing? Wings are a mutation, something that the Prime hadn’t been bothered by in any particular way, but still an unknown. 

Bly will know what to do, he thinks, Bly or one of the alpha-batch if they can find them. “That’s wonderful, little one. Make sure to contact Colt and tell him.”

“Elek, al-verde'vod,” promises the boy, and runs off again with the medic looking increasingly harried as she jogs off in pursuit after a beseeching glance to Cody. The kid’s shirt is tucked into her waistband, fluttering black as she chases the silvery sheen of his wings through the camp.

He laughs quietly as he watches them go, remembering Wolffe’s swarming affection to Bly last time they met. “They are always so excited for their wings, sir. I apologise if they step out of line.”

“No, Cody,” assures General Kenobi, placing his gentle hand on his shoulder, “I am honoured they have such trust in us.”


End file.
